


Fools in love

by FeelingsDusk



Series: Teen Wolf Bingo [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Not exactly graphic depiction of violence but almost, Not putting more tags because it'll ruin it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 08:39:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6975937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelingsDusk/pseuds/FeelingsDusk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(For the StilesxPeter square)</p><p>Their love is forged in fire, agony, despair and death, and they're fools for not realizing it until the last minute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fools in love

**Author's Note:**

> For the StilesxPeter square in my Teen Wolf Bingo Card. Originally it was for the I’m Sorry one, but I don’t think it covers it now…
> 
> It’s darker than anything I’ve written up until now but, well, I was in a dark mood myself, to be honest ^^U.

_He tried to tell them and they wouldn’t listen._

“Stiles, you can’t just raise the alarm and worry everyone like this without proof!“

“I have proof! I have tons of proof!” When Scott shoots at him a skeptic look, Stiles doesn’t let him have a chance to recover and barges on, hastily pulling out a stack of folders from his backpack and turning on his laptop. “Okay, first beware, this isn’t pretty.“ He takes a deep breath before continuing. “Meet Donovan Williams, from Denver.“ He pulls his face-shot in his laptop, it looks suspiciously like the official one from his driving license or passport. “He disappeared without a trace on January and hasn’t been found since then. Keep that in mind. Okay, now, fast-forward to March, the Miller family was killed in Santa Fe.“ He doesn’t pull a picture this time and they don’t have to read too much in between the lines to know that it would have had children on it. “First, before that, a body was recovered, too damaged and decomposed to find a viable D.N.A. match. Then the family was killed, but they only assume that because the forensics say that with the amount of blood in the scene it’s impossible anyone survived. No actual bodies were found. No trails, no clues, no witnesses, no traces, the case went cold. It’s still open, but… well, you catch my drift. Now, in May…”

“Another family.“ Peter is uncharacteristically grim, Stiles squeezes his knee reassuringly under the table without thinking. The rest keep in horrified silence. As always lately, Lydia is missing.

“Yeah, in Tucson, same exact thing. First a decomposed body found, then a family gets killed.”

“We have a body, yes, but that’s not exactly strange with the amount of supernatural bullshit on these parts. It could be not connected or just a regular murder. And even if it’s supernatural or whatever, it doesn’t mean that we have to get involved. So long it doesn’t attack us…”

“I hate to say this, but she’s right, Stiles,“ Kira says apologetically, nodding to Malia. 

“Let me finish, you women of little faith.“ Malia scowls but he ignores her. He opens two pictures at the same time, all of them show the same type of graffiti painted in red. “Prior to the murders, there are police records of calls made by one of the family reporting the vandalizing of a property of the family that went absolutely nowhere.”

“Those are…“ Peter takes control of the laptop to enlarge one of the pictures.

“Runes,” they both say in unison and Stiles continues. “As in real Celtic runes. I’m not an expert, it took me a while to notice that the runes seem to be used as an alphabet but they are so over the place I can’t… suffice to say it’s not too far off to think that this has to do with the supernatural.“

“How the hell did you find all of this? It can’t have been all googlefu!“ Issac scowls skeptically.

“I may have also done a lot of hacking… and maybe a couple of impersonations too?”

“And taken way too much Adderal while not sleeping at all?“ Scott says knowingly. Peter frowns.

“Forget about that.” He waves him off and this time, it’s Scott who frowns. “It took a while but no one can resist the Stilinski charm, it grows on you.“ 

“Like fungus, you mean.”

“I’m sorry, Isaac, I’m afraid I can’t hear you over the sound of your jealousy.“

“Jealousy?!”

“Children, behave,“ Peter says drolly and Derek sighs.

“Malia is still right, though, that doesn’t mean it’s the same here,” Scott points out and she preens.

“Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona. If we follow the pattern it should happen now in July either in Arizona, Mexico or here in California,“ Peter muses pressing his knee to Stiles’ almost absently.

“There hasn’t been any body reported on the others, I checked,” Stiles adds, reclining on his chair.

“But we have no runic display reported here either,“ Peter counters.

“I hate to say this, but Peter is right.”

“Well thank you, Scott, you approval has certainly brightened my day.“ 

Scott rolls his eyes and continues. “This is not proof, Stiles.” 

“You aren’t even going to look into it? I have a really bad feeling about this, Scott.“

“That’s because you’re not sleeping, Stiles. You know it makes you more paranoid than normal.“

“I’m not being paranoid! How much more do you want me to bring?” he protests pointing at the laptop and the files. “I still don’t have the autopsy from this one, but I bet you…”

“Not again stealing from the station! Have you talked to your dad about this?“

Who? The one that has been all over Beacon County except at his own town for the last two months? The one with whom he hasn’t had a conversation longer than two minutes long for that same amount of time?

“ _Please, trust me on this._ ”

“So you haven’t.“ He sighs pinching the bridge of his nose long-suffering. “Stiles, this isn’t about trust, I just don’t think…“

“You would have, before… but I suppose things have changed, huh?”

“This has nothing to do…“

“Yeah, sure, whatever… You know what? I don’t have any proof of that either. I’m out.” 

“Stiles!” He hears Scott calling him before he adds. “Let him be. He’ll be better after he sleeps a bit.”

_He hears his ribs crack and feels hands on his chest. He knows he opens his mouth to let out a scream, but no sound comes out. He can feel something clogging his airways and he battles to bring oxygen in. His mind tries to escape the unbearable pain and fixes on the runes glowing on the living room’s wooden floor._

Stiles knows that by now the autopsy of the body will have concluded and that the evidence will be stored but not filled in the database. He dislikes not having all the information, so he heads to the station to sneak in.

He steals (copies, actually, he knows better than to compromise anything that could throw out a case) the police report and looks at the evidence easily. He knows their rotation schedule, the blind spots of the security cameras, the location of the files and, more importantly, he’s had a copy of the keys of the evidence room ever since he was nine and one douchebaggy deputy got fed up with the noise he was making with his Batman action figure and locked it in there. 

(That deputy only lasted a month before he actually moved out of Beacon Hills altogether. His dad was really worked out because he didn’t even deign giving back his set of keys before he left. It even went on his record.)

He nearly has a heart attack when, after he climbs back into his jeep, he finds Peter sitting on the passenger’s seat. 

“Dude, what the hell?“ When the man only raises his eyebrow like the smarmy bastard he is, Stiles adds tiredly. “What are you doing here, Peter?”

“What? You wound me, Stiles.“ He even brings a hand to his chest to accompany his ridiculously overdone hurt expression. “It’s an absurd concept, and it even lowers my IQ from even contemplating it, but one would think that you don’t want me here!“

“And miss all the entertainment you bring? Never crossed my mind,“ he answers dryly and for a moment, the man stares at him, gaze intense. “What.”

“You have good instincts, Stiles.”

“Huh?”

“Pass me those files.“

“I thought…”

“I just pointed out that no runic display has been found _yet_ , I never said I didn’t trust your judgment… or you.“

Stiles swallows the lump in his throat, his eyes never leaving Peter’s. “I got new information of the body found here but the evidence is useless for now,” he says finally, letting the white-knuckled grip he has on his backpack relax.

“Where do want to do this? My place or yours?“

“Yours.”

With his dad gone, there’s no food in the fridge. His room is full of charts and although the bed is made, it’s because he hasn’t bothered feigning he has slept on it since his dad left. He doesn’t want Peter to see that.

But then again, it’s Peter, Stiles is pretty sure he suspects what’s happening at the very least. Just the thought makes him want to cringe.

“Chinese? Or home cooked meal? I have hotpot, but if you want we can stop for those curly fries you love so much,“ he adds, and the tone of his voice makes clear his preference for the home cooked meal against greasy fast food. 

Somehow, even though the mere mention of food has been enough to make him queasy these past few days, right now it sounds so heavenly that his stomach grumbles. He swallows thickly, turning to face forward before he does something stupid or humiliating… like cry in front of the man. He blinks rapidly as he turns to grab the seat belt.

“Hotpot,” he swallows again. “And don’t you dare dish the curly fries. They are the food of the gods.”

“Then it’s no wonder that there are so few of them left nowadays.”

Stiles snorts.

_Only Peter believed him, and he’s locked away in Eichen House. No help is coming. The runes are designed to keep him alive and feeling all the pain rippling through him. PeterPeterPeterPeter. It hurts, it hurts so much, his mind is going in loops, trying to escape, but there’s nowhere to go._

Peter’s phone must be ringing, because the man stops in the middle of their murmured conversation (shockingly, the Sheriff has been home for two days now) to fish it from his back pocket. When he sees who the caller is, he rolls his eyes before picking up. Stiles’ lips twitch as he reaches to raise the volume of the series he has playing in his laptop (they are using Peter’s for research) to serve as a buffer to their voices.

“Well, hello, dear nep-“ he starts before blinking and frowning at his phone after just a few seconds. “It seems that the alpha requires my presence immediately.”

“Did he say what Scott wanted?” Melissa must be on a night shift for Scott to be having a pack meeting this late.

“In the whole five seconds we talked? No, he just said to come to the pack meeting to contribute for once. How rude, my mere presence is more than enough contribution.“

“Because your ego fills the room so nicely…“

“Cute,” Peter drawls and Stiles snickers. 

Neither of them mention that, truthfully speaking, all Peter does when he’s at the pack meetings _is_ contribute, because they only call him for that. They don’t comment either on how grating that is for the man, whom always comes back to Stiles closed off and bitter, vibrating with pent up aggression that takes hours of close contact to abate.

After one of those times, Stiles mentioned the possibility of going to one himself, to at least be there for Peter. Peter took a good look at him and categorically said no. Stiles tried giving at least a token protest but they both knew that it would do more harm than good… and since it wouldn’t save Peter from going himself, it was a moot point.

They share a commiserating look. Peter reaches to place a hand on his nape and squeeze reassuringly at the same time Stiles traps the man’s ankle between his sock clad feet.

“See you later, or if not, tomorrow at my place?”

“I made lasagna this morning, so lunch is on me.“

“Perfect.”

Stiles waits until the man has left through the window to turn to look at the files showed at the screen of the laptop.

He’s so frustrated! Both of them are, to be honest. It’s been nearly three weeks since the body appeared and nothing. Not only they don’t have any new information, but there hasn’t been any other incident since then. And they haven’t even found the runic display that Stiles is beyond sure is out there, somewhere. It gives him the chills, because he’s also sure something bad is going to happen. _He just knows._

“Stiles?” The door to his room starts to open almost an hour later, and on reflex, he closes the window and opens a document with an economy project.

“Yeah?“

“Can you come for a second?”

“Okay?“ 

As he descends the stairs, that awful feeling he’s had in the pit of his stomach for weeks now starts growing steadily, until he’s sure he’s going to be sick.

“What’s going on here?“ He asks grimly when he takes a look at his living room and finds it full of people.

“That’s what I would like to know,” his dad answers equally grim.

Stiles frowns at the tense tone, and then spots the traces of blood in Scott’s and Derek’s clothes.

“What the hell happened? I told you something was wrong! Why didn’t you listen to…“ He stops himself abruptly from going even nearer to fuss over them. There’s only one person missing in the room. “Where’s Peter?” When Scott’s face goes guilty looking to determined in a matter of nanoseconds, Stiles’ breath catches in his throat. ” _What have you done._ “

“What needed to be done,“ Scott answers determined, and Stiles is invaded suddenly by a wet and cold feeling and he’s choking on thin air.

_He’s going to die. He’s going to die and Peter will never know, because no one will think of telling him, and he’ll think Stiles has abandoned him like everyone else in his life. Come on, move, move, dammit._

“Can’t you pass a single message to him, please? I’m begging here.“

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re not in the approved… Okay, kid,” the woman behind the desk finally loses her fake smile and scowls at him, “let’s be clear so you stop being a pest. You weren’t on the approved list of visitors two weeks ago, you aren’t on the approved list of visitors today, and I’m completely and undoubtedly sure you won’t be on the approved list of visitors in the future. Especially since I have a picture of your mug here to identify you,“ she pulls it out and Stiles gapes, “and not let you pass. No messages either, his nephew was very clear. Now can you please leave and never go back? I’m effing tired of repeating this every single day I’m here, and I’m sure my colleagues are too.”

“I-I… please?“ His voice breaks. He’s humiliatingly close to tears and he knows she can tell. “Just tell him I came? Nothing more? I’m not asking for much, please? No one needs to know and I won’t tell, and I’m sure he won’t…”

“Are you deaf? Get lost! I’m not passing any message and none of my workmates will either. Don’t make me call the police to remove you from the premises.“

Stiles presses his lips, trying to regain some semblance of composure. The whole way to his jeep, he’s in a haze. He spends quite a long time with his face resting in despair on the steering wheel. He knows that when he gets home, that woman will have called his father (or Derek will have) to tell him he tried visiting Peter again. He’s not looking forward to his father’s disappointed tone through the receiver of his phone. And if he doesn’t pick up, either Scott or Derek will show up.

He doesn’t want to go back.

(He doesn’t want to face the reality that he’s hates everyone at this point.)

(He doesn’t want to feel that dark ugly rage filling him again and his control start to slip through his fingers.) 

He gets out of the jeep, leaving the keys on the ignition and his phone on the passenger’s seat. Didn’t his dad threaten to take his jeep? He can have it.

He wanders.

A long time later, he finally takes notice of how much time has passed. It’s dark already and the street lamps are lit, casting eerie shadows on the concrete and the walls. In front of him, his first house sits. His breath catches and he nearly starts crying.

He can’t take this, not right now. He just…

Unbidden, his feet take him to the front door, past the for sale sign. He takes in every difference he can detect at first sight, and a part of him resents the people that lived in the house after the Stilinskis deeply.

As he expects, the door is closed, so he circles around it to the backyard, hoping, and at the same time dreading, that someone was lackadaisical enough to forget to lock a window or the back door. 

When he reaches the backyard, his breath catches again when he sees that their tree with the swing is still there. He can’t help but sit on it. 

It takes him almost ten minutes to recover enough force to sit up and approach the house again. Before even trying the door, he places his hand on it and rests his forehead on it, closing his eyes. The crystal is cool and it’s soothing his headache. He breathes for a while.

When he opens his eyes, his breath catches again and panic ripples through him.

He doesn’t even get to scream.

_She’ pulling at something and, oh god, how can the pain be even worse? It’s as if she’s taking a limb from him, but he knows she’s not. He can see she’s not. PeterPeterPeterPeter. Oh, please, make it stop. Pleasepleaseplease. No, give it back. Give it back. It’s so cold. So cold. He’s underwater, icy cold enveloping him. He’s sinking. Fading._

He wakes disoriented and in pain. He’s not tied, but he can’t move. Runes run in every direction from his body and it takes him a moment to notice that they are written in blood. Then pain kicks in and he registers, almost in a detached way, that the blood is probably his. 

There’s a woman muttering about changing plans and tainting and many things that don’t make sense. When she notices him awake, she slaps him in anger, her talon like nails leaving a red imprint in his face. 

Suddenly after that, her words make no sense. He knows he should understand what she’s saying, she’s not speaking in another language, but it’s like his brain can connect, can’t process. 

She reaches for a knife. It’s big, and curved, and barbed, and rusty, and just the sight of it makes terror course through him, hot and cold, and he wants to be sick. _Someone, anyone, please._

_PeterPeterPeterPeter._

With steady hands, she cuts. He tries to scream, eyes impossibly wide, but no sound comes out. He can see everything, he can’t stop looking, he can’t move, and his blood starts to pool around him. The runes start to pulse with an eerie light, and with a start, he realizes that he should be dead by now, and he isn’t. He can feel everything and it’s agony.

It’s his spark, she’s taking his spark. He can feel her hands on him, inside him grasping at something and he struggles. She says something angrily but it doesn’t even register. He pulls at where he feels his spark pulsing. He pulls and pulls and pulls, trying to keep it with him, to not let her have it. 

She’s not touching the organs in him, but it feels as if something rips.

She takes it and he can’t scream. It feels like she’s just ripped all his limbs from him at the same time. He panics, mind fracturing, and tries pulling again. Something dark and cold answers instead. Her scream of pain is delicious and dark satisfaction fills him. He tries to roar when he can’t reach her, when she flees with part of him in her. 

His vision starts to clear and he can see the room now. He’s changing. He tries to roar again, fingers turning into claws. He wrestles himself until he regains control because he’s going to die if he doesn’t get help. Even through the haze of pain, he knows that.

He reaches to the runes beside him and forces his claws to destroy the wood they sit on. Then, he screams, and screams, and screams. When the neighbors’ front lawn lights turn on, relief almost chokes him.

He screams again.

(Something must have broken in him, because even in horrible pain and with his ribcage cracked open, he wants to laugh at their horrified faces.)

_His chest hurts just as if it’s being cracked open again and again. He’s so cold and with every stroke of the plume, it’s as if they’re dragging a brandishing iron over his skin. It’s torture, it never ends. Please, kill him already. Please, let it end. So, so, sorry, Peter, but he can’t take it anymore._

“I’m so sorry, Stiles,“ Scott is crying, trying to reach for him, only to be stopped by Kira’s grip on his arm.

He wants to rip his throat. He wants to kill everyone in the room. Scott, Kira, Isaac, Derek, his father. Kira’s anxiousness, Isaac’s stricken expression, Scott’s pained one and Derek’s scowl make him want to paint the walls red with their blood.

(He can’t even look at his father.)

He still can’t move. 

He’s not in a regular hospital room. Runes are glowing on the walls, on the headboard, on the straps tying him to the bed railings, on his skin. It doesn’t take that much to guess he’s at Eichen House. 

Thanks to whatever the runes are doing to him, he’s healing slower. It’s an agony, because they won’t give him painkillers. It hurts to breathe and his limbs feel disconnected. Every time he moves, the room tilts and his vision darkens around the edges. There’s a hole in his chest, deep and dark and wide, with bleeding edges. Something is slowly, painstakingly painfully, filling it.

“I’m so sorry, I should have… I… What can I do to make this better?“ he begs again.

“I want Peter,“ he finally talks after giving them the silent treatment for nearly a week, ever since he woke up restrained and things that he thought where delirium product of his pain, were very real. If he ever gets his hands on Deaton and Morrell, he’ll tear their skin stripe by stripe to make them feel exactly what they did to him to place all those runes on him.

“Stiles…“

“I want Peter.” 

Peter is pack, Peter is safe, Peter is… PeterPeterPeter. 

“We can’t…“

“Then I want you gone,” he interrupts him coldly, his gaze fixed in the wall before him. “I want to never have to see any of you again.”

“Maybe we should…“ his father mutters pained.

“I know that’s not you, Stiles,” Scott continues, not derailed. “I know it’s the nogitsune talking and we’re going to fight it together and everything will be okay again.“

“Scott,” Kira intervenes hesitant, seeing his eyes narrow and his hands clench on the sheets.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?“ 

Stiles closes his eyes and doesn’t answer. They moment they exit, he opens them again and looks intently at the walls, his skin, everywhere he can without being too obvious, and he bids his time, because, if he understands well, the runes they’ve used on him? They’re designed to contain a nogitsune and the person possessed by it.

And he’s neither possessed nor a nogitsune. 

_Pain, pain, pain. Every minute, every second. Inside and outside. Pain. Peter, he wants Peter. PeterPeterPeter. Painragefrustrationghelplessnessagonyhumiliationfuryvindictiveness._

“You’re going to have to talk to me if you want to get better, Stiles,“ Marin Morrell states softly from where she’s sitting beside his bed.

It’s been nearly three weeks since he woke up in this hellish place. Eighteen days of tortuous recovery, unbearable daily visits, grating counseling sessions, humiliating force-fed meals and demeaning restrained sponge baths. Eighteen days of not moving from the bed, not even to go to a toilet, because that’s what the catheter and all the stuff is for.

He has the wards mostly figured out, but the problem is that they’re feeding him something that makes him lethargic and keeps the kitsune (for a lack of a better word) in him in check.

“If you don’t take action, it’s going to hurt the people around you. How will you feel if that happens again and again?“ 

“I wouldn’t know, since I fought the nogitsune every single second from the moment I realized it was there. You tell me then, how did you feel?“

“What?”

“How did you feel when you didn’t fight against Deucalion to save your own skin and all those packs got murdered? How did you feel when you trapped three kids and knowingly sentenced them to death, mmm?“ He’s looking at her in the eye since his first word and it takes him a moment to notice that he’s somehow trapped her. He breaks it before she can notice, he’ll explore that later with the orderlies. “How do you feel about all that blood in your hands?”

She tries redirecting the conversation but has little success. Stiles takes great pleasure in turning her own words against her, and the sound of her erratic heart beat is music to his ears. If he can’t tear her apart with his hands, he’s going to do it with his words. 

(Until he has the chance to do it with his hands that is.)

(Because he’s thought about it quite a bit, with all this free time and all… About everything that’s been happening, about Allison’s death and about if it’s really his cross to bear. They want him to believe that neither of them knew about the darach? And Deaton didn’t know where the Nemeton was and just had _one_ ritual to stop her? And again, neither of them noticed that he was being possessed right under their nose? How incidentally convenient.)

She leaves with as much dignity as she can manage, letting the orderly with his lunch go in. Internally, Stiles rubs his hands and gets to work. Didn’t Peter tell him that he has good instincts? He closes his eyes as the man approaches him with a scowl on his face and a taser in his hand. When he’s right beside him, he reopens them, letting his instincts guide him.

And he does it again and again, day after day.

Practice makes perfect, after all.

_He can’t move. His skin feels like boiling. He lets out a roar, scratching at the ground, and he hears Peter’s answering one just behind the door. So close, so close, and he got caught. So stupid. PeterPeterPeter. But at least he’ll know Stiles didn’t abandon him._

It takes him a month to actually be able to manipulate the orderlies into doing what he wants and that’s only in small things. He orders them to look away when they wash him, to let information about Peter slip. Trying to make them lessen the dose of whatever they’re putting in his food or pass a message to Peter fails completely, because the moment they step out of the room, his power over them disappears. They don’t seem to remember what happened, so at least there’s that, he supposes.

He’s running out of time, though. Peter is worse with each passing day and he has heard them talking about trying to up his own dosage or modify the runes to try to lessen the control they think the nogitsune has over him. 

As it is, he’s in constant pain because of them. They feel like third degree burns on a good day, and are excruciating on a bad one. It makes it difficult to concentrate, and since he doesn’t have his Adderal, it feels like he’s battling against all odds.

He gets bolder and bolder with his powers and starts pumping information about their rotation schedules and the security measures out of the orderlies. When they enter accompanied by the guards to change his clothes or the bedding, or to do the rehabilitation exercises, he trains himself to manipulate them both at the same time.

The day they up the dosage on his food, he makes it look as if it affects him more than it really does. He stops what little talking he was doing before, he bears with unwanted hugs and contact from his father and the pack, and feigns slipping into his own world.

When Deaton comes one day along with Morrell to study the runes and how to enhance them, he knows he’s running out of time. 

That very same night, when the guard catches his eye through the little window on the door, he gets caught by Stiles. He’s not subtle or has any care as he makes him open the door and come inside. He makes him come to the bed and untie him. As Stiles gets him to change the runes on the sheets with his own blood, he catches sight of the drool slipping through the corner of his mouth. 

He doesn’t give a damn.

He clenches his yaw as, naked as the day he was born, the guard washes all the runes from his skin. As if a domino effect, all the arrays in the room fall and disappear. He feels his strength returning and his body trying to battle the poison in his blood. Slowly but surely, the scars on his chest and the pain start to lessen.

He doesn’t kill the guard but makes him guide him to Peter instead. He instructs him to check in with his fellow guards like he normally would to avoid raising the alarm. If any of the other inmates sees them, they keep quiet about it.

Down two flights of stairs and to the end of the corridor they march, and with another guard they cross snared, they reach Peter’s cell. Stiles heart is pounding wildly.

_PeterPeterPeter._

Just as he’s directing one of the guards to open the door, something slams into him with enough force to bring him to the ground. He tries to retaliate but it’s as if he’s being pulled down by a ton’s worth of force.

He hears Deaton, Morrell and more guards and orderlies. He forces the guards to attack them to gain more time, but he feels his control over them slipping. Vindictively, he pushes and pushes until he feels their minds snap and hears them drop to the floor like marionettes with their strings cut off.

They start burning the runes on him again and he snarls and roars in denial, pushing against the restraints. He hears Peter answering roar and, for a second, he’s choking on thin air. He pushes again as his skin starts peeling.

He feels the taser’s bite on his side again and again, and his limbs go limp.

He’s failed.

Peter roars again. 

_PeterPeterPeterPeter. So sorry, he’s failed. Please, stop, it hurts so bad. They’re carving them into his bones. It’s torture. Agony. He hears himself scream. Pleasepleasepleaseplease… Peter is screaming too. Please make it stop. Pleasepleaseplease._

“Stiles!“ Peter voice reaches him and he struggles. “Stiles!” He calls again.

“PETER!“ he roars.

“Sweetheart, wake up, you’re safe, we’re safe,“ he urges him. “There you go, that’s it, open your eyes.”

Stiles gasps, his vision clearing to find his claws embedded into Peter’s forearms. He retracts them hastily, with his breath erratic and his heart rabbiting in his chest. Peter’s wounds close almost instantly. 

He forces himself to recall the exact moment when he came back to himself in that corridor to blood splattered walls and detached body parts and vacant eyes. He forces himself to remember the instant after opening the door when he touched his packmate, his anchor, for the first time in a very long time. 

He doesn’t say he’s sorry, just as Peter doesn’t either when he wakes up screaming for Stiles. They just hold each other tightly, breathing their scents in and waiting for their hearts to calm down and for the tremors to pass. 

It’s been nearly two years since they left Beacon Hills and, even though the frequency of the nightmares has lessened, it stills happens. It leaves Stiles wanting to go back and raze the town to the ground. 

Still, he should have expected having one after what happened yesterday. After all, it was a tough pill to swallow that, after finally tracking the bitch that took the spark from him, he couldn’t absorb it back. He had to watch, chest tight, how each and every spark she had stolen burnt themselves into a cinder and disappeared. There was simply no place for it to fit inside him after all he’s done to fully embrace the kitsune in him.

Peter watched, not intervening, as he returned the favor and kept her alive for as long as he could as he worked on her. He just gathered Stiles in his arms after he burst out in tears when she finally died. 

“I was thinking of traveling,“ Peter says finally, after long minutes of silence.

“Where?” Stiles answers, voice thick and with his face firmly buried into the crook of the man’s neck.

“Anywhere we want, really. Spain, France, Egypt… maybe Japan?“ Peter answers nonchalant.

“Japan?”

“Beautiful land, Japan. And famous in the supernatural world for the temples and magical shops. It should be interesting at the very least.“

Oh, how he loves this man.

“And it doesn’t have anything to do with it being the land of origin of the kitsune, mmm?”

“Well, I thought that just because you don’t have your spark, it doesn’t mean you can’t do magic anymore, sweetheart. Kitsune are known to have their own set of magics, after all,“ he adds grudgingly, sounding charmingly embarrassed.

Stiles hides a smile, turning his head and adjusting his position so that the man’s heart is just under his ear. It’s not like he needs to do that to hear his heartbeat, but there’s something profoundly comforting about the position. Peter plays with the little hairs on his nape and he almost melts.

“Anywhere but here sounds heavenly so long it’s with you,“ he says quietly.

Peter’s hand stills for a second before resuming his petting. “Is this our cue to proclaim our undying love for each other running through the hills?“ He jokes drolly after an almost awkward silence.

Stiles lifts his face from where it’s resting to look at him in the eye. Red tints his cheeks, because neither of them is good with talking about feelings, but he feels that maybe it’s time to have this conversation. 

“Do you need me to?“

Peter’s eyes soften and Stiles hasn’t seen anything more beautiful than this in his life. He tries to engrave every single detail into his memory.

“Haven’t we done that already? Our own version, anyway.” 

Stiles blinks, caught off guard for a moment for a reason he cannot fathom. They have, haven’t they? In their own way, they have, and many times already. 

“ _Fools in love, are there any creatures more pathetic?_ “ Stiles sings softly, remembering the lyrics to that song and Peter’s lips twitch. “I think that covers us to a t,” he adds dryly after that one phrase.

“How cute, and now we have our song,“ he jokes fondly, hearing the rest of the message Stiles is sending to him with that one reference, and equally subtly acknowledging that his feelings for him are the same.

Fools in love, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> There you go. I have to admit that writing this kinda felt therapeutic ;).
> 
> For anyone that doesn’t know the lyrics to that song or doesn’t recognize it, [here](http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/greysanatomy/foolsinlove.htm).
> 
> By the way, sorry if the major character death tag fooled you (totally not sorry), it was for Morrell and Deaton (totally intended to fool you).
> 
> XD
> 
> Some feedback, please?


End file.
